Southern Maine, foot issues, autumn, and moose!

Hi folks!

I am writing to y’all from the Backstrap Bar and Grill in Stratton, Maine, having just passed mile 2,000 on trail!! Obviously, that means that I’ve already passed into Maine, the final level in the video game of the Appalachian Trail!

The defining characteristic of Maine so far is its remoteness. Maine and New Hampshire have a lot in common in terms of terrain (vicious ups and downs, for sure), but Maine has a marked decrease in people. Especially being a late season hiker, it occasionally feels like I’m one of the last ones out here! I have seen familiar faces recently, though; shoutout to CJ, Wiki, Doppelgänger, Wake-n-Bake, Cocoa Bear, and others that I re-met back up here!

After the Whites, I did take two days off in Bethel, Maine, to take care of my feet a little bit. Going down so many hills in the Whites caused the entire bottoms of my feet to bruise and swell, which I didn’t really even know could happen! After a couple of days of rest, they are all better, you’ll be happy to know. I also got a chance to exchange some worn out Darn Tough socks for some new ones, which has also helped them out! You have to love that lifetime warranty! RIP, my 2,000+ mike socks!

We had two days of hard rain here in Maine, but the weather has been great otherwise. After the second day of rain, I took the evening to stay at The Cabin in Andover, Maine. The owner, Honey, is a 90-some year old wonderful woman that was glad to share trail stories from her many years of living the trail. She was good friends with Earl Schaefer, the very first Appalachian Trail thru hiker, who completed his hike in 1948. She has a neat room full of AT memorabilia through the years, including a large dining room table signed underneath by years and years of hikers. Her hostel had the definite feel of “your grandmother’s basement”. It was great.

Passing through southern Maine, you go through some rugged, rugged terrain. Famously, the Mahoosuc Notch is a 1 mile section of trail whose murderous jangle of boulders, crevasses, and caves lend it the title of “the toughest mile of the AT”. I don’t know about toughest, but it certainly demanded a full-body style of rigorous hiking unique to that section. The rest of Maine has plenty of sections that need to be navigated with care, with rebar drilled into the sides of sheer rock faces, steps drilled into the mountains, or boards aiding in river crossings. Neat stuff!

Though I have no pictures of the encounter, I did have a late night encounter with a bull moose. After sunset, as I was sitting in my tent, I was awoken by the sound of heavy thudding nearby. Curious what was there, I shone my light out the screen of my tent to see a moose walking by, about ten feet away. That was fine, until it got curious what I was and approached my tent. As it peered into my tent, it was so close I could have bopped it in the nose; the condensation from its heavy moose breath clouding the interior of my tent. What do you do? Nothing, that’s what. Moose are monsters, and it’s moose rut season, so they can be aggressive. I just say there and let him decide my fate, which, luckily, was for him to leave me alone. As he turned his big moose nose to leave, he ripped the gulling of my tent out of the ground, frightened himself, and then sprinted off into the woods. Freaky stuff, but neat.

Right now, Maine is about at peak fall color! It pays to be a late season hiker, as we get to see the trail at its most beautiful!

This morning, I crossed the Kennebec River! Shoutout to Cheryl who ferried us across in her canoe! From here, it’s just 150 miles to the end of the trail! It’s hard to believe it’s almost over. I’ll try for a quick update before the end of things!